**Why You Should Go: **When it comes to summer weather, Miami Beach has gotten a bad rap on the heat-meets-humidity front. Sure, high-80-degree temperatures are the norm. But consider this: In all of 2013, the hottest it ever got in Miami Beach was 93 degrees—and that was in May. In New York City, the thermometer hit 97 degrees in July. You’re going to break a sweat in the summer months, no matter where you try to hide. So wouldn’t you rather do it in a place where white sand beaches, crystal clear waters, and air-conditioning are aplenty? What's more, summer is the city’s off-season, so you’ll quickly discover that the very same hotels, restaurants, and nightclubs that had absolutely no availability between December and April will bend over backward to make your stay more comfortable in the summer. Let’s not forget all the $99 treatments available at the city’s top spas in July and August for Miami Spa Month or the sub-$40 meals that await during August and September for Miami Spice. With prices like that, you can afford to come back for Art Basel in December.

Courtesy The Setai

Where to Stay: The Setai took Miami’s top spot in our latest Readers’ Choice Awards, with guests citing the hotel’s Zen-like vibe, fabulous location at the northernmost part of South Beach, accommodating staff, beach club, and three pools—each set at a different temperature—as some of their favorite amenities. And now there’s one more thing to love about this Art Deco on the outside/Asian-inspired inside resort: The Ocean Suites, a series of one- to three-bedroom suites (the smallest of which measures a generous 900 square feet), each one of which comes with a variety of exclusive amenities, including transportation to and from the airport, daily breakfast, a spa treatment, dedicated valet service, and personal assistance with both unpacking and packing (upon request).

Courtesy The Bazaar by Jose Andres

Where to Eat: The menu is as playful as the décor at The Bazaar by José Andrés, the James Beard Award-winning chef’s Philippe Starck-designed restaurant at the Hot List SLS Hotel. You just have to trust us that there’s a method to the culinary counterintuitiveness… and believe that frozen blue cheese and foie gras PB&J sandwiches really do work. You may know Roberto Cavalli for his slinky animal print dresses, but he makes a mean lamb osso bucco, too. In January, the famed Italian fashion designer unveiled Cavalli Miami Restaurant & Lounge, a sleek villa-turned-eatery and lounge in South Beach’s SoFi neighborhood. The ground floor of the bi-level space is where the food happens, with classic Tuscan eats from executive chef Stefano Mazzi; upstairs, an opulent lounge area (decked out, unsurprisingly, in some of the designer’s famously loud prints) serves up an appropriately fashionable cocktail menu, including the $450 High Roller, a mix of Champagne Perrier-Jouët Belle Epoque, Louis XIII de Rémy Martin, Angostura bitters, and brown sugar cubes.

The Broken Shaker Photo: Adrian Gaut

Where to Drink: A hostel isn’t the first place you’d expect to find one of Miami Beach’s hottest cocktail bars, but The Freehand is no ordinary hostel (read: it’s the kind of hostel you’d actually want to stay at). Its on-site bar, The Broken Shaker, earned a James Beard Award nomination for its lineup of handcrafted cocktails, which are flavored with herbs and spices from the bar’s own garden. Artisanal libations and a hotel bar meet again at Living Room, the indoor/outdoor lounge at W South Beach, where locally sourced ingredients are part of the bar’s dedication to sustainable practices. For suds lovers, Miami Beach’s only brew pub—The Abbey Brewing Company, just off of Lincoln Road—serves its own award-winning menu of ales (its Immaculate IPA is a customer favorite) plus a dozen other international beers and a full bar.

What to Do: You don’t have to be an architecture buff to be impressed by Miami Beach’s Art Deco overload. In the designated “Art Deco Historic District” alone, there are more than 800 perfectly preserved—and sometimes pastel—examples of the style that has become part of South Beach’s fabric. To gain a better understanding of what it is you’re actually seeing, the Miami Design Preservation League leads a daily walking tour (twice on Thursdays) from their Art Deco Welcome Center on Ocean Drive.